Happy 17th of May! Constitution Day in Norway

What is Constitution Day?

Better known as syttende mai (the 17th of May) or Grunnlovsdag, this is the celebration of Norway's independence from Denmark achieved in 1814. Norway was actually ceded to Sweden from Denmark earlier in the year, but it was on May 17th that the Norwegian Constitution was signed, ending centuries of control by Norway's Scandinavian neighbors.

Hip hip hurra for Norway!

Constitution Day is a very important celebration in Norwegian culture. Here is a typical way to celebrate it in Oslo:

Friends breakfast

Waking up early to share breakfast with your friends is a nice way to kick off the day. We were graciously hosted by some good friends and had a meal to remember, full of traditional Norwegian foods, some tasty drinks to get the celebration going, and topped off with a beautiful Norwegian flag themed cake:

Traditional attire

If you find yourself in Norway on May 17th, you might feel like you traveled back in time. This is because almost everybody wears their finest clothing, including a high percentage of people wearing a bunad, the traditional dress of Norway. These are extremely beautiful gowns worn by the ladies and suits worn by the men. They contain a variety of colors and patterns based on the region of Norway a person is from, often with decorative silver and gold pieces as accessories.

Bunads are really special and are only worn at important events (weddings, etc). They are handmade using only the finest quality materials, and combined with the silver and gold, they can be quite expensive (easily over $2000-3000 in many cases), so they are treated very carefully and often passed down from generation to generation. Seeing the different styles and designs throughout the day is one of the highlights of the celebration.

In our group, a couple of the ladies were wearing their dazzling bunads:

Us men don't have bunads unfortunately, but we wore the finest we had:

This was the first May 17th celebration in Norway for my girlfriend @jilliankelsey:

Even our friends of the canine variety dress for the occasion:

Children's parade

Downtown Oslo is a hoppin' place starting at 10 am. This is when the children's parade starts, and kids from over 125 schools in the Oslo area march down Karl Johans Gate (the main road in the city center) to the royal palace at the end, where they are greeted by the King and his royal family from the balcony of the palace.

There's an unbelievable amount of people downtown for this. Almost every school has it's own marching band, which I find very impressive. The combination of the crowds, the music and the general fanfare creates an very energetic vibe, even when the weather doesn't totally cooperate (though the rain held off today at least).

The view down Karl Johan's Gate from in front of the palace:

Greetings from the King:

Not your typical royal family, this one has some style and flair. Here's some shots from last week's celebration of the King and Queen's birthdays, including some dabbing by Prince Sverre Magnus:

The russ are on the loose

Russ (pronounced like roose) are the students getting ready to graduate from the equivalent of high school here. For several weeks, you see them roaming around town in their red (for general studies students) or blue (for business students) russ suits. On May 17th, you hear their party buses booming around town. here's an example of a parked bus blasting music that we passed on the way to the parade, with a group of blue russere enjoying themselves:

Walking around town

The weather was a lot nicer in 2016, and it ended up being a 4-day weekend last year due to another holiday the day before, so there was perhaps more of a party atmosphere in the city, but it was still nice to go for a stroll after the parade.

Just as many people turned out this year despite the weather being much colder and cloudier than in 2016

We ended up making our way over to Birkelunden park, where we caught the tail end of the men's choir singing the Norwegian national anthem:

After that, we had a nice meal at a restaurant with some other friends, and then made our way home. Not a bad May 17th celebration!

---

Adventure Every Day is a travel & exploration channel started in 2016. In addition to the Steemit blog, I post short films of my adventures to the Adventure Every Day YouTube channel. Please follow and subscribe!